Finding Fault
by Timekpr
Summary: Jack has a lot to hate himself for, and some nights he can't stand to be alone. Will be Jack/Ianto but this is not a love story. It's not for children and could be offensive to some readers. Questionable consent, light BDSM, mild slash be warned.
1. Chapter 1

_Takes place after "Captain Jack Harkness"._

There should be an upside to no longer sleeping, but if there is Jack can't seem to find it. Even his nightmares have learned to chase him into the waking world. He can't shake the sorrow of leaving 1941, the look in the real Jack's eyes when he walked away. Around him the empty Hub echoes with the soft hiss of falling water and the deeper whuff-whuff of the pterodactyl breathing. This is the time the horror rushes back and solitude is its invitation.

Riding back in the SUV was the first flash of fear. He is a dead man wearing a stolen name. Worse, he stole history. The record changes that made him "Captain Jack Harkness" deleted from history the story of a real man's final heroic death. He's made some small restitution in telling Tosh what happened to the Captain but confronting the real man has forced him to admit that he's a murderer. He'll spend all of eternity chained to the memory of a good man who vanished to give his name away.

After the team leaves he traces the pattern of a crystal glass and starts to wonder how much of it is his fault. Would Capt. Harkness have died without the knowledge he had seen in these blue eyes? Did the goodbye kiss make one of those young pilots doubt their commander? If he'd never stepped into 1941 would Capt. Harkness still be alive? With all his years of crossing time cause and effect blend until one can't be separate from the other.

From one perspective, it couldn't be his fault. He first set foot in 1941 after Captain Harkness was dead, stole his identity, and joined the Doctor. Joining the Doctor takes him to the future, where he cheats death and goes back to the past. He should have been nothing more than a silent witness to events but he couldn't leave well enough alone. Now he knows that he was there before, changing the Captain's actions, making his death more likely if not outright causing it. He's lived through the 1940's before and knows how homosexuals are treated and still he kissed that man publicly.

He's reaching for the phone before any one thought is clear in his mind. Ianto's voice sounds calm over the line; barely a trace of disturbance when his greeting is met with only silence. He can't choke out words, everything trapped behind a wall of guilt. The crystal slips through his shaking hand and shatters on the floor and hearing the crash Ianto knows where he's needed.

"I'm on my way, sir." Then the soft click of disconnection.


	2. Chapter 2

_A/N- Ianto's ringtone mentioned in the story is "45" by Shinedown. _

**Ianto**

He never dreams. Some nights he lays quietly staring at the flat white celling above him and it hurts to know that its just one more difference between his mind and the others. Yet most mornings when he wakes from the empty void of sleep he's guiltily glad to be spared insight to his own subconscious mind. Ianto never wonders what his dreams would be like because in point of fact — he does not want to know. The blank nothingness is a comfort he's come to rely on as his waking thoughts grow ever more disturbing.

Yesterday he'd contemplated three homicidal acts before lunch. Once making coffee, noticing how simple it would be to add just a teaspoon of arsenic to each colorful mug. The second time as he stood behind Gwen half-listening to her natter on he could picture his hands around her neck, feel he struggles as she fought for air. Lastly, while vacuuming out the SUV he'd considered tampering with the brake system. Easy enough as even Tosh never watched the CCTV in the garage anymore. Why would she? Just faithful Ianto washing mud off the fenders and tossing out wrappers from the back seat.

Rationally it made sense. They'd stolen his reason for living, twisted him beyond all recognition. Where once he'd cleaned up their mess with noble purpose to remain with Lisa now he's just the coffee boy blowing the boss. A cliché pretty secretary for Jack and nothing more. He weighed the possibility that his real motive for trying to stop Owen from opening the rift was that Jack being gone was what he truly wanted. Or what he needed. Or perhaps what he would see in dreams, if he had them anymore. His relief that the shot landed shoulder-high was tempered with regret that he'd missed anything fatal.

Ianto's not suited to self reflection. His habit of keeping secrets extends so deep into his soul that he's oddly comforted to keep things from himself. On nights like this when he searches the depths of his insanity — and it is insanity, he's known that much since Canary Wharf — the trail of his own actions leads places he will not go. He needs to find a reason to live again, not just a set of programmed activities that simulate a life. But he doesn't want to live enough to make it happen.

In sleep, his inner dark demon transforms. Ianto revels in those moments of being at one with something greater than himself, merged with the absence of light, a perfect union with absolute and eternal darkness. Some nights he wonders if he dreams the dark — if his deepest hidden fantasy is death. Real or imagined, the silent blackness brings him a rare peace.

Peace shattered suddenly by the phone. Shinedown echoes through the room singing of a life turned to ashes, Ianto's choice for calls from the Hub. His persona slips effortlessly into place and he answers calmly. "Ianto here, what do you need?" Only silence meets his query so he patiently waits a moment before asking, "Hello, anyone there?"

The clear sound of crystal turning to shards is thin and electronic over the telephone but it is a sound he's created too often not to identify it instantly. Reviewing the possible causes of such a sound in the Hub he knows only one person is likely to be dropping glasses at three in the morning.

He speaks to the silent man on the other end of the call, "I'm on my way, sir."

xxxxxxxxxx

The roar of falling water blends into the sound of blood pounding through Ianto's head as he enters the hub. Nineteen minutes after the mysterious silent call from the Hub and he's timed each minute by his own heartbeat. The lights were dim just as he'd left them hours before, only the lamp in Jack's office casting eerie reflections and distorted shadows across the floor.

Long habit slows his speedy approach to the lighted room. Wouldn't do any good to break a leg charging to the rescue, he thinks bitterly. Ianto's hand slips down and opens the button of his jacket and sweeps it back to clear the holster. Anything that leaves Jack lost for words calls for extreme caution. At the doorway he rests his fingers just grazing the grip of his gun, body turned sidewise to minimize his exposure while he scans the room with eyes and ears.

Everything looks normal. Jack seated at the desk, no obvious sign of distress or struggle. Ianto compares the items on the desk to his precise mental map and notes only a single discrepancy — only one crystal glass where two had lain earlier. His tension only increases as Jack continues to sit silently, Jack who'd always have his mouth open and running long before anyone got this close to the inner sanctum.

"Sir?" His tone was measured, calculated to be questioning but carrying no hint of his inner distress. A distress that tightens his grip on the gun when Jack remains silent and unmoving.

Ianto steps forward into the golden light of the office. A snapping crunch underfoot reports the current location of one missing crystal glass. That mystery solved he can study Jack's face closely at last. What he sees drives him back two steps in shock.

The man in the chair wears Jack's face but somehow isn't Jack. Every mask tossed aside, nothing blocks Ianto's gaze from staring straight into Jack's soul. All the energy that normally animates Jack has been drained away just like scotch pouring out of the broken glass. The intense healthy blue of Jack's eyes has bleached to a pale translucent grey so inhuman that he starts sharply forward to lay one hand on the motionless man. Before his searching fingers can register a pulse Jack reacts to his touch with a deep irregular breath.

"Jack?" He honestly was at a loss for what else to say. It was immediately obvious what gripped Jack so tightly. Ianto was intimately familiar with wounds caused by pain, loss, and guilt and Jack was in no condition to hide the damage those three poisons were etching into his soul.

Jack's voice was barely a whisper, "Don't call me that."

The raw anguish tainting those words drops Ianto to his knees hard against the cold floor. Reflexively he tightens his grip but Jack never flinches. Slowly Jack looks down to meet Ianto's eyes. Torchwood had shown death to Ianto in many guises but the one that stares at him now was as familiar as his own shaving mirror. It freezes him for a long moment, seeing suddenly that Jack too lives each day with the pain that is his own constant companion.

He knows nothing will fix this. What has caused Jack's crisis is irrelevant and Ianto knows that from his own breakdown after Lisa died. He's learned to live in spite of pain, begun to accept who he is because of the pain. No words can ease this kind of torment. No gesture of forgiveness will be welcomed.

In the end he forces Jack's lips down to meet his own hoping that is the one thing that just might draw him back.


	3. Chapter 3

A/N - Thankd for reading all the way to the end. This story is an update and edit of one I wrote and posted to Teaspoon and my live journal several years ago. I was playing with writing styles and alternative narrative elements and my then-beta was pushing me to write outside my comfort zone. Hence, some odd point of view changes, and while there are some inconsistencies in the narrative tense they are in there deliberately as a style choice. Thanks all who waited for this last chapter and please please please review - even if you hated it I want to know why.

And, as always, dark Ianto gets the last word.

* * *

Ianto intends kissing Jack as a gesture of acceptance, a way to get Jack back in the here and now. Intentions aside, as soon as Jack's lips connect with his it becomes something else entirely. He just hadn't considered how raw they both were when stripped of all their armor. How much anger still churns his gut over the way Lisa had been stolen from him *_stolen twice, comments a dark voice in his mind _.*

As he forces his tongue roughly into Jack's unresisting mouth he pushes all his resentment in as well, turning a gift of comfort into something dangerous. Caught between hate and need he hauls Jack completely down to the floor heedless of the scattered glass shards turning to powder beneath their legs. He claws awkwardly, one handed, at his tie afraid to release his bruising grip on Jack even long enough to properly unknot the silk. A bare flash of copper flares in his mouth and briefly he wonders who drew first blood and if it even matters.

Once the crimson silk tie is free of his neck Jack's hands rip at his shirt and the buttons begin to snap apart with a cracking sound that seems louder than a gunshot in the silent hub. He shoves his lover *_his boss, his friend, his enemy*_ backward hard, hard enough that the chair tips over behind them with a deafening crash. The noise just makes it more right, more real than the half-life they both live in the shadow-world of Torchwood. He captures both of Jack's hands in one of his own after a brief struggle and pins the stronger man with the force of his will more than the strength of his body.

He fights for every bit of control he can while binding Jack's wrists. Not trying to control his emotions for this once, seeking only physical control of Jack in every way. They've been together before, hot and slick with physical passion that was only a relief valve. Never has Ianto felt this powerful and alive in anyone's arms. He's not sure exactly what he wants right know but he *_knows* _with absolute clarity that he's not stopping until he gets it.

Jack's cock is hard enough that it digs painfully into his thigh even padded through both their trousers. Ianto grinds himself viciously against Jack and leans in to lick the blood from the parted swollen lips beneath him. When he wrenches himself to his feet and sheds his trousers along with pants, shoes and socks the vision of Jack sprawled helplessly at his feet send a jolt of lust coursing through every molecule of his flesh.

Ianto sweeps his gaze over Jack from top to bottom, cataloging each detail for later recall; wrists wrapped in blood red silk, fingers flexing spasmodically clenching nothing but air, arms extended above his head well past the point of comfort. Jack's face is turned to one side, each tendon his neck straining against flesh in stark relief, a sheen of sweat *_or is it tears, Ianto? whispers the dark voice* _glistening on each span of bared skin. His eyes focus on the tight hard bulge of the erection, so much more erotic trapped beneath linen and wool than when revealed to the light.

Kneeling with deliberate intent in the midst of shattered glass and overturned furniture, he methodically strips Jack — first the sweat-soaked shirt, then ripping away the fine cotton tee beneath with a sound just like a weevil tearing into human meat. Moving down he drags the belt free and pauses to fasten it like a leash, securing the silken bundle of Jack's wrists to the heavy chair beside them. His nails scrape over tender skin when he pulls down the zipper and Jack's moan could be pain or pleasure - it doesn't matter which one anymore. Slipping one hand beneath Jack with deceptive tenderness he pulls Jack over on his belly, exposing acres of unmarked flesh and the tense rounded cheeks of the most perfect ass Ianto has ever seen.

He feels like an animal now as he falls forward to hands and knees, Jack face down beneath him. When he drives his hips down and forward there is disappointment — they are both so covered in slick sweat that Ianto is denied the friction he so desperately needs. Still he grinds hard, dragging the aching curve of his cock between those perfect cheeks. Frustration forces a growl from his throat and clenches his hands into fists while his hips drive forward and back relentlessly. Somehow Jack finds the leverage to move and everything but sensation vanishes from his mind as Ianto feels his cock bury itself deep into burning heat.

It's too tight, too dry, too hot and its too damn perfect — two voices groaning, both their bodies moving relentlessly together. No fantasy of control compares to this; no one is in control, no rational thought interferes, and nothing can stop the inevitable orgasm. Climax slams into their joined flesh and overtakes Ianto with the power of a tidal wave. His scream is torn from his body but lost in the hot thick flesh of the neck locked between his jaws. Rushing coppery blood floods his mouth as Jack's seed pumps out onto the unyielding floor.

Jack breaks the silence as they lay spent upon the floor. "I could fall in love with you."

Ianto thinks for a minute, contemplates all the possible answers, discarding all the predictable responses to that statement. He thinks so long that before he responds Jack has wriggled around enough to make eye conatct and its just a bit like being under a microscope.

Ianto settles on absolute truth, "But you won't, sir."


End file.
